


Unravel

by AHubOfHuntersAndAngels



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Episode Tag, M/M, Post-Cyberwoman, Spanking, s01e04 Cyberwoman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHubOfHuntersAndAngels/pseuds/AHubOfHuntersAndAngels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So moch damage occurred as a result of the Cyberwoman in the Hub. Anger, fear, regret, betrayal - emotions have bome so tangled that Jack isn't sure if he can unravel them. Ianto isn't sure if he belongs anymore, or if he can be forgiven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Aren’t we all fascinated with Cyberwoman, at least a little? So much goes unsaid and unseen, except for a suspension that may or may not even be canon, we never learn about the consequences.  
> Also, if you're looking specifically for the juicy punishment bits (totally understandable) you may choose to skip ahead. I'm trying to explore the emotional wreckage left in the wake of that episode, so that when Ianto's punishment rolls around it feels like a natural occurence. not just titillation. But if you just want the titillation, it will be in Chapter 4.
> 
> I don’t own anything, and all that.

Ianto still knelt on the cold floor. After his initial scream of grief, he had fallen silent, frozen by the body of his dead love.

The team, at a motion from Jack, had filed wordlessly out of the basement room. Upstairs, Jack addressed the others. “Go home.”

“Jack…the bodies…” Tosh offered tentatively.

“Will be dealt with later. It’s been nearly twenty-four hours. Get some sleep. All of you.”

Gwen practically ran for the door. Tosh looked at the CCTV monitor that showed the cyber conversion unit and all the damage it had left behind. Damage that, at this point, probably included Ianto. But there was nothing to do about that tonight, and so she left, too.

Owen remained where he was. “I’m not going, Jack.’

“Owen, so not the time.”

“Jack, I should be here. You know that. For… whatever,” Owen finished cryptically.

Jack glared back at him. “Fine.” He knew very well what whatever meant. Whatever meant, to serve as a witness for an official Torchwood execution. It wasn’t a formality Jack had planned to bother with, but if Owen felt like it, then that was fine. “Come on.”

Neither of them spoke on the way back down to the basement, which was good. Jack had thought Owen might argue about it. Owen would have done the same thing for his fiancée without even blinking. And Jack would have had to shoot him, too. Because sometimes, love just doesn’t seem like an adequate excuse.

Ianto was now sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his head in his hands. When he heard Jack and Owen come in he looks up, stared at them for a moment, then slid his back up the wall and got to his feet. Such quiet grace in a doomed man. - (Jack had always been attracted to that quiet grace, that dignity. When coupled with one of Ianto’s shy, teasing smiles, the desire produced in Jack had been nearly uncontrollable). -

Jack walked over to face Ianto. “I told you,” he growled.

Ianto’s voice was nearly inaudible. “I know.”

No begging. No protest. - (Ianto never liked to make a scene. He always preferred flitting around the edges, invisible but integral in the lives around them, finding joy in anything he could do to make their lives easier or make them smile). - Just as well. There was no need for this to be any more unpleasant. Jack didn’t want to do this. But actions have consequences

Holding the gun to Ianto’s head was surprisingly intimate. Having power over anyone’s life was intoxicating. With Ianto, whose coy flirting had slowly been driving Jack crazy for weeks, but had proven a surprising challenge to seduce - (never resistant, but never fully present; appeared to enjoy himself and at the same time never seemed to really pay attention) - it was coupled with a fierce and pulsing desire. Jack wanted to throw him on the floor, to take him over and over again, unstopping and merciless, and let that serve as penance.  
Of course he didn’t. While his work at the Time Agency had given him an appetite for causing pain, it had mostly faded, and he fought against it every time it resurfaced. That was the worst version of himself.

“Just do it, sir.” A voice quavering broke into Jack’s fantasies and he awoke to the realization that he hadn’t pulled the trigger. “Just be quick,” Ianto said again. As much as Ianto was attempting to control it, fear was writing itself across Ianto’s face. “Please. At Torchwood One it wasn’t always quick.”

The quiet horror of that phrase – it wasn’t always quick. He really had been planning to shoot Ianto. But he couldn’t now.

“No,” he said, to one in particular. As if to emphasize the point, he threw the gun to the floor and walked out, leaving them both standing there.

Owen came up to his office half an hour later. Jack was sitting at his desk, trying not to think about any of it. -(The light touch of Ianto’s lips, playful venturing of tongues, until Ianto broke away and said, “I should order everyone’s food”, and Jack had grabbed his hand and pulled him back, kissing him until Ianto broke away again.’‘I should really order that food.” ---“When was the last thing you ever asked me about my life? I clean up your shit and that’s the way you like it.” “I’ll watch you suffer and die.” “You execute her or I’ll execute you both!” “We can be upgraded. Together”.)-

Owen spoke. “I checked him over. His blood pressure is sky high; he’s been running on adrenaline for days. He has a few bruises from when that thing threw him across the room. Cracked rib, concussion. I’ll take him back to my apartment. Someone should watch him overnight.”

Jack was facing out the window, his back to Owen. “Keep him here. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“You would have shot me.”

Jack turned around to face him, looked him in the eye. “No. I wouldn’t have.” And realized then that he was actually telling the truth. He could no sooner kill a member of his team than he could kill himself.

“Jack. I’m not saying you should have shot him, all right? But you have to do something.” The tone of Owen’s voice and the look on his face conveyed how serious he was. It was always a bad sign when Owen was serious.

“I know,” Jack responded. “I will.”

“OK. Well, like I said, keep an eye on him. I’ll check his BP again in the morning.”

Owen walked out onto the floor and grabbed the jacket slung over his chair. “Call me if you need me,” he said and walked out the door.  
When Owen was gone, Jack left his office and went up to the roof of the hub. A pale daylight, tinted with pink, was just beginning to spread over the city of Cardiff, but the citizens remained asleep. The city had come so close to being destroyed by a Cyberwoman because of an employee mistake. Almost impossible to believe.

You’re going to have to do something, Owen had said. A terrible mistake made out of love by a marginalized employee. Accidental near-deaths of his team. A shattering blow to the sense of their unity as a team – if, for Ianto, that unity had ever existed to begin with. A valuable person whose whole life was torchwood, a person none of them felt they could trust now. And an egregious betrayal to the sense of closeness that Jack and Ianto had built – or thought they had built – with their secret, stolen liaisons. Yes, it was going to be so simple to unravel this.

And below, Ianto knelt again and the cold floor, trying in his mind to redraw the lines between the living and the dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really new to Ao3, and I don't know HTML. Having said that, if there's anything I should be doing with the formatting to make it easier to read, please let me know. I can't figure out the italics, so all the thoughts will be bracketed with dashes. Memories will be too, but memories have paretheses around them, so you can tell the difference.

It was some undetermined and unholy time of the morning. Ianto had slept for over 24 hours. Now, waking up a full night later, he sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

  
-What was I supposed to do, Jack? -He wondered. - Kill her? OK, but when?? When all I could see was the smoke and all I could hear were her screams? Afterwards, surrounded by the bodies, when we were just glad she was alive at all? When she was asleep and powerless, connected to that god-awful machine? Or tonight, when I still couldn’t see anything but Lisa, my Lisa, every time I looked at her, even though the world was falling apart? -

The fact that he couldn’t know the answer didn’t make things any better. Because he should know the answer. He should have been able to find an answer. Because of him, the team would always think of Lisa as the one who tried to kill them. Not the hard-working Lisa who showed him that Torchwood could be more than a job, or the flirtatious Lisa who convinced Ianto to go out with her, or the brave Lisa who fought off a Cyberman while Ianto constructed an escape route. Only Lisa the machine.

Ianto didn’t blame the team, or Jack, or even Lisa. He only blamed himself.

He didn’t want to sit in this gray, windowless room with its hard bed and metallic walls any longer. There must be something he could be doing upstairs. He couldn’t piece things back together, so he might as well pretend they weren’t broken. Who knows? If he did that for long enough, he might, for one single moment, forget about Lisa and about the sick, gaping emptiness within him.

When he emerged from the lift Jack was staring out at him from the window above. Gwen was with him. Ianto wondered at that for a moment, then decided not to bother. Gwen came and went as she pleased.

Ianto stared back at Jack. He knew he should go up and say something. Or grovel. But he couldn’t. He meant to, but he found himself frozen beneath Jack’s stare, unable to do more than nod. -I’m still going to work here. I mean, if you want me.-

Jack nodded back at him. - I do.-

“You would never have shot him, not really.” “Have you ever loved anyone, Jack?”

He had wanted to say, Gwen Cooper, bloody gorgeous Gwen Cooper, please shut your bloody gorgeous mouth.

He didn’t tell Gwen that she was right in her assertion that he would have never killed Ianto, because that would require admitting how close he came to it. And now, after twenty-fours had passed, Jack’s head had cleared, and the Hub was quiet and safe, Jack was shocked that he’d even considered it. He’d felt so outraged and betrayed that he’d actually gone down to the basement with a gun and thought about pulling the trigger. He didn’t even recognize himself in the memory. He wasn’t that person. But while he’d gotten a lot better about a lot of things while travelling with the Doctor, his ability to think clearly in the heat of the moment wasn’t exactly one of them. Just another reason to find the Doctor before he hurt anyone.

He hadn’t known what to expect from his team’s morale. Jack had autopsied and disposed of the bodies the previous day, while the rest of the team were at home, so at least he didn’t have to cope with the ill will that could arise from assigning anyone that task. Ianto kept mostly to the archives; when he had to be upstairs, he made himself silent and invisible. Jack wasn’t sure if any of the team had even gotten a proper glimpse of him. Tosh was busy with software programming; she may have been bothered, but she didn’t let it show.

Owen seemed to be on edge, as though he was waiting to see what Jack was planning, but aside from an offhand remark or two he carried on like normal. It was a surprise to everyone that, of the whole team, Gwen was the one who held the grudge.

“Why is he still here, Jack?” she demanded while he was out on the floor. Tosh and Owen turned to look.

“Because it’s my decision. And you didn’t seem to have a problem with it this morning.”

“I was trying to be nice!” she shouted, gesticulating to highlight her point. “I thought he was about to be fired, and I was trying to be nice. But, no, apparently here at Torchwood you can’t get fired!”

Owen said her name softly but she ignored him. “She attacked me!” Gwen shouted, turning her wrists inwards so her palms pointed towards herself. “I was the one she put in that Cyber conversion unit. She was one second away from taking everything from me. I almost lost my whole life. But it’s OK, yeah? No one’s dead so it’s all OK?”

He stared at her levelly, in silence, as he usually did when Gwen had one of her outbursts. When she stopped yelling he held her gaze for a moment, then broke it off to look at Owen and Tosh. “Back to work.”

He knew Ianto had heard Gwen. Maybe over the comms, or maybe in person, or maybe through some ingenious rigging of his own invention. But one thing Jack had learned was that Ianto owned this Hub in a way Jack himself had never imagined was possible. No one except for him could use it to keep secrets. It was like an extension of Ianto’s body. - (Ianto’s body, warm and soft beneath Jack’s fingers. That first time together, in the archives, the only sounds had been the rattling of the radiators, a distant call of a Weevil, and Ianto’s soft moans. Ianto’s sweet-smelling skin, his intoxicating body, they allowed Jack to do something he hadn’t done in a long time. They let him forget.)-

  
  
Owen came and found Ianto in the archives. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“To the medical bay. I need to look you over again. And you shouldn’t be moving around with that broken rib.”

Ianto closed in around himself. “You can’t stop me.”

Owen rolled his eyes. “OK, Ianto. Whatever. I promised Jack I would check your blood pressure again, so just come up to the medical bay, OK?”

Ianto didn’t want to spend any time with Owen – or any of the team. He knew how they must feel. He had certainly heard how Gwen felt. And he couldn’t blame them. He didn’t want to see them, not when he had no words to offer and no way to make amends. A small and selfish part of him wondered if he owed them anything at all. He wasn’t on their team; they had made that perfectly clear.

Of course, he did owe them, and he knew that. Plus there was the matter of what he owed Jack. Ianto was perfectly willing to hide in the archives for the rest of his natural life if it meant avoiding Jack. -(“It was…good, sir.” Just good?” And Ianto had smiled, a smile that was more of a lie than he should give his boss and still less of a lie than Ianto had meant for it to be. “Very good. “)-

“Right,” Owen said after examining him. “You can tell me the year and the Prime Minister and you still know how to count, so I think you’ve recovered from the concussion. I don’t expect you to fall on the floor unconscious or anything. You’re right, I can’t stop you from moving around, but try not to get into any fights, all right? Your pulse and BP are still higher than I want them to be. It’s like you overdosed on adrenaline. I’m going to write you for some Ativan. It’ll help. Here,” he said, handing Ianto a small plastic cup containing white pills. “Take that.”

Ianto stared at him. “Ativan is an anti-anxiety medication.”

“You know, I do know what Ativan is, thanks. Just take the stupid pills. They can make you tired, so from now on take them at night.”

He swallowed them and stared at Owen scratching away on a clipboard. -(He had hated the pleasure. Hated the thought that he was doing this for any other reason than Lisa and hated manipulating Jack. For eighteen months he had given only a part of truth and a part of himself to both of them, never knowing which one he wanted more and never able to cut either one loose.)-

“You don’t have to bother. Just tell Jack you checked it. I won’t bring it up.”

“You know,” the pen made a scratching sound, “I may be a twat, but I do like my job, and I like doing it well. So take that,” he handed the piece of paper to Ianto, “and get it filled, would you? I’ve got to falsify medical records for the doctor and the pizza girl, so I’ve got enough extra work without calling the pharmacy to make sure you got your meds.”

The paper dangled limply from Ianto’s hand. “The bodies…” It was the first he’d thought of it. The thought hit him with an astounding clarity. -(He had wanted so badly for it to be Lisa in that body. The blonde hair and the strange face didn’t matter if he got even just one more moment with Lisa. But of course, it hadn’t been Lisa. Just a machine employing the voice box of what used to be a nineteen-year-old pizza girl).-

“Jack got rid of them. He did most of the work. Lisa’s, too,” Owen added.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” Ianto sounded both gently curious and oddly detached. “You could have. You’ve had the chance. You could have told Jack I went for your gone. You could say you had no choice.”

“D’you want that?” Owen asked. “Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever given you proper credit for how dramatic you can be.” Ianto made no move to acknowledge the words, and for some reason Owen found that slightly annoying. “I’m pissed at you. We all are. It’s not the same as wanting your head on a platter. Now leave, I have to get back to work,” he said, and under his breath added, “ you child.”

At the door of the medical bay Ianto turned back to face Owen. “What’s he going to do? Jack, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” If Ianto hadn’t known better, he would have thought there was sympathy in Owen’s voice. “I really don’t know. He hasn’t told me. I’m sorry, Ianto.”

“No, I-uh-it’s fine-I mean, I, um - yeah.” And he practically ran back to the archive.

He should have said, “What are you sorry for? I’m the Official Team Fuck-up.” Better yet, he should have apologized. He should have taken the chance to apologize to Owen for everything.

But instead he had stumbled. He was always stumbling.

-(“Well, you’ve only spent the last few weeks fetching me coffee and staring at me when you thought I wasn’t looking. So yeah,” Lisa had laughed, “I think I know you want to go out with me.” And then months later: “Hey. What are looking at, handsome?” Jack had said, andthen had given Ianto one of his uncomfortably dazzling smiles.”) -

Owen’s question continued to echo in Ianto’s head. “D’you want that?” And sitting in the dark archives, swallowing coffee laced with very strong scotch, Ianto was glad Owen hadn’t waited for the answer. Because while Ianto didn’t think the answer was yes, he couldn’t swear it was no.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know how to work italics, thoughts are still surrounded by dashes.

Nearly a week had passed. The bodies were long gone, the last stains of blood off the floor downstairs. A routine had been developed for who went out to get coffee and when. The Hub was finally becoming noisy again.

Jack had suspended Ianto for a month. He had no other ideas, or at least none that he liked. It mollified Gwen’s anger and proved to Owen that he would, in fact, do something. Although when he had told Owen, Owen had gotten one of those looks on his face, those uncharacteristic serious looks that Jack had seen such a surprising number of this week. “You think that’s a good idea? I mean…you know what? Forget it. You’re the boss.” And he’d shrugged, walking out of the office and leaving Jack even more uncertain about the decision.

At least, if nothing else, he didn’t have to see Ianto this way. He couldn’t stand it.

-(He remembered falling off the rooftop all those years ago. “You kill me. You always kill me.”)-

Ianto was so much like Angelo. So beautiful, so sweet, so innocent and gentle. Jack gulped at his whiskey. He heard himself mutter, “Why did you have to let me down?”

 

  
The next morning – more sober, less angry, less wounded – he went by Ianto’s apartment to check on him for the first time.

The door was not locked. That was the first thing Jack noticed. The second thing he noticed was that the apartment was tidy. No dishes, no empty bottles of alcohol, not even overflowing trash cans. Ianto was shaved and showered and sober and nothing like the expected picture of overwhelming grief. He simply sat on his couch, wearing boxers and a dress shirt that was half-unbuttoned, perfectly still and staring into an unseen darkness. He wasn’t distraught, as he had been the night Lisa had died. But that would have been better than this stillness. A sense of fear gnawed at Jack.

Jack shut the door behind him. “Hello, Ianto.”

“Hello, sir.” There was a moment before Ianto’s eyes returned from darkness and focused on Jack. After a moment he said, “Do you want something? Is there something you need me to do?”

He sounded so submissive, so sad, and yet so quietly eager. Jack found himself focusing on the anger, the sense of betrayal, the panic and danger that Ianto had caused. It was the only way he could look at the quietly shattered Ianto without giving in, without granting him the forgiveness and absolution he so clearly wanted so much. And Ianto didn’t deserve that. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but there it was. Jack found that he was having trouble thinking at all. He was furious at Ianto and felt sorry for him. He wanted to give Ianto punishment and forgiveness, do something that would push him away and bring him back, all at once.

“No. No. I just wanted to see how you were.”

Ianto was silent. Locking his eyes onto Jack’s he slowly stood and walked towards him. Jack was unsure how to react, and before he could decide Ianto was kissing him, gently but firmly, and the arms wrapped around Jack’s body were pulling him slowly towards the couch.

It took Jack a moment untangle himself from the embrace, the hot bliss. “Ianto, stop it.”

Ianto let go of Jack and sat back onto the couch. “Oh. So I don’t ever get to touch you again. Is that your plan?” His voice was tinged with bitter sarcasm – barely evident, but there.

“I don’t have a plan, Ianto. Funny, this isn’t in the Torchwood handbook. ‘What to do when your employee and part-time shag lets his psychotic robot hybrid girlfriend get lose in the Hub?’”

Ianto flinched. Inwardly, so did Jack. -That was cruel-. Jack prized his self-control – prized it because for him, it was so hard to come by. And it was rapidly slipping through his fingers.

“I shouldn’t have come. I’ll leave you be.” He moved towards the door.

“Jack.” Ianto was standing. He put a hand on Jack’s wrist. “Let me come back to work. You can do anything to me there. I don’t care now. Shoot me, if you want. But for God’s sake, Jack, let me come back to work.” He met Jack’s eyes again. “There’s nothing worse than being alone.”

Jack may not be great at self-control, but he was very good at running away, and he could barely stop himself from doing so. He wasn’t just Ianto’s wronged lover or betrayed teammate, he was his leader. He had to do what was best for all of them, whatever the hell that was.-- I hate you. I hate you for putting this on me. I hate Alex for dying and leaving me with this. I’m a con man and a Time Agent and at my best I take orders from the Doctor, and why the hell did anyone give me all this responsibility? Someone give Torchwood to the Doctor, he’s good with responsibility. I’m not. I don’t want it.-

“Fine. Come back tomorrow. But first, come in tonight after everyone goes home. I’m invoking Disciplinary Action 4. “ He ignored the look on Ianto’s face. It wasn’t necessarily a good answer – it certainly wasn’t the one Jack had wanted – but it was an answer, and Jack didn’t know what else was left to do.

He shrugged off Ianto’s arm and made to leave, but he stopped when he reached the door. Jack faced Ianto without quite looking straight at him. “I already lost Suzie. I’m not losing you too. I am not giving up on you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the intense part, so in you think punishment/spanking/caning scenes will bother you, turn back now.
> 
> Also, I still can't figure out how to do italics on here, so thoughts are framed by a set of dashes. If you see a set of dashes surrounding a phrase, just substitute italics in your mind.

* * *

* * *

Chapter Four

 

“You’re mad,” Gwen said to Jack. Jack had called the team together in the center of the Hub before they left for the day.

  
“Gwen…”

  
“No, really, you’re mad. You’re positively mad. You cannot be allowed to do that!”

  
“Disciplinary Action Four, included in the Torchwood Charter of 1879: “Due to the extreme danger of the work of the Torchwood Institute and the level of exact obedience required therein, the head of Torchwood is permitted to use any means deemed necessary to maintain control and or/discipline the employees of said Institute.” And let me tell the you, that has been interpreted in a lot of ways of the years. Some of them rather creative,” Jack finished.

  
“So you’re going to what – torture him?”

  
“Oh, come off it,” Owen, leaning against his desk, said in annoyance. “For God’s sake, Gwen, it’s not torture, it’s a cane. Like they use every day in boarding schools on horrible children. It’s not that extreme, not for a place like this.”

  
“Oh, and how would you know so much about it?” Gwen snapped.

  
It was clear she had put no thought into saying it, because in the silence that followed, she looked silently stunned.

  
Owen’s voice was glacial. “You’re charming, you know that, Gwen Cooper? Fucking charming.”

  
“Besides,” Jack said coolly, “I thought you wanted me to do something.”

  
“Well, not this! It’s…it’s…” she trailed off.

  
“Gwen, you’re overreacting,” Tosh stated calmly.

“It’s my call.” Jack glared at Gwen. “And you don’t have to work here.”

Gwen gaped at him, her eyes even wider than normal. Tosh pulled at her arm. “Come on, Gwen. Let’s go. We can stop at the pub on the way back to your place.” She led Gwen, who was still wordless with shock, out of the Hub.

Jack stared after them as they left. He steepled his fingers together and held them against his lips for a moment, then dropped them, shook his head, and looked at Owen. “You knew I would decide to do this eventually, huh?” he asked tiredly.

Owen shrugged, still leaning against his desk. “Not for sure. You’re a hard man to predict, Harkness.”

 

They heard footsteps. Jack’s eyes darted towards the door. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.” He disappeared into his office. I  
Ianto entered, his arms folded across his chest. He stopped when he saw Owen. “I thought you’d be gone.”  
“Well, I’m not.” Owen gestured towards Ianto. “Come with me.”

` They descended into the storage wings in the lower levels of the Hub. Jack and his predecessors had put anything down there that could be useful but hadn’t come through the Rift – anything from furniture to clothing to property deeds and one diamond necklace that no one knew anything about. Most of the rooms had beds for the members of Torchwood staff that had stayed there over the years. Ianto followed Owen into one of them.

Ianto sat awkwardly into a folding chair. There was a long silence.

“Why are you here?” Ianto said finally, quietly.

 

“Paperwork,” Owen replied casually. “Policy. I don’t know why Jack thinks it’s a big deal, but he does.”

Ianto didn’t relish the idea of Owen, who mocked everyone about everything, being present when Jack caned him. Maybe that was part of the punishment – making it humiliating as well as painful. But there was nothing he could do about it. He’d thrown himself on Jack’s mercy back at his flat. In some subconscious way, he’d thrown himself on Jack’s mercy when he had joined Torchwood Three. He’d seen when they met that Jack was decisive, dominant, used to being obeyed and quick to get angry when he wasn’t. When he brought Lisa – or the thing that wasn’t Lisa – into Torchwood Three, he’d known that sometime, eventually, he would end up facing Jack’s judgment. And did it even matter anymore? He’d caused the deaths of so many people, nearly the entire team. And he’d betrayed Lisa, in some ways, by making her into a monster rather than letting her go.

Owen hadn’t been exactly honest with Ianto. Technically, there was paperwork – something about preventing employee abuse. But in order for that paperwork to matter, someone would have had to actually look at it, and according to Jack, no one ever did. Owen was there because he wanted to be; he was here for support. His presence kept Jack from second-guessing himself and confirmed that he was doing the right thing. And he acted as a buffer between Jack whoever was being punished. Owen had been caned many times in his life, sometimes by people harsher than Jack. He knew about the moment of pure terror when you’re bare and vulnerable and alone with the person holding the cane. He didn’t like for his teammates to face that.

Not that any of those reasons were ever spoken. Owen didn’t like to get caught being nice. “Take your clothes off, then,” he told Ianto. Ianto looked at him with a blank face and made no move to do so. “Look, you can take them off now or when Jack comes in, but they’re coming off sometime.”

Slowly, Ianto stood. He unbuttoned his shirt, pulled off his T-shirt, folded it, and hung then over the back of the folding chair.- Jesus Christ - Owen thought. - I understand being tidy and all, but that’s just anal. -

Before he could finish getting undressed the door opened. Jack entered. He was carrying a long wooden cane. It looked to be made of a lightweight wood, at least lighter than the ones you saw in movies about boarding schools, but he had no doubt it could do plenty of damage. He sunk back onto the folding chair, feeling sick with fear. He was shaking, and he knew that both Jack and Owen could tell.

“Ianto.” Jack’s voice was firm and hard as it had been on that terrible night, although there was no fury, or even anger, in it. “Look at me.”  
Helpless, Ianto looked up. It was nearly impossible to hold the gaze of those intense blue eyes. They made him want to fall on the floor and beg Jack’s forgiveness; they made him want to run away; they made him want to kiss Jack forever, without even stopping to breathe. My God, he thought dizzily, unable even to complete the thought. My God.

“I understand that you wanted to save her,” Jack said. “I really do. But you should have come to us. You should have told me about her when you first asked to work here and asked for my help. I would have found a way to help you. Or at least, I would have helped you do what needed to be done, before things went so far. You’re a valuable part of this team, Ianto. But you have to trust us, and we have to be able to trust you. Suzie stopped trusting us. When she started having problems, she didn’t tell us. She isolated herself. She slipped away and I didn’t notice, and now she’s gone. I’m not going to let that happen to you. You’re a part of this team. You need to know that. I need to be sure you know that. And to be part of this team you need to face real consequences for the things you do, not get suspended and shut out. I’m not going to let you hide yourself from us anymore, Ianto. I’m not going to let you slip away.”

Ianto hadn’t planned to argue, but the words came out before he could stop them. His voice shook. “I was never a part of this team. Not really.” He heard the echo of resentment in his voice. He’d felt that resentment fiercely once. He’d even felt like he had a right to it. But that feeling had been drowned in shame and sorrow. Besides, he’d lost the high ground there; the last of it had slipped out from beneath his feet when the thing wearing Lisa’s face had risen from the cyber-converter and tried to kill them all.

There was a flicker of uncertainty on Jack’s face, and then a flicker of regret. There was some truth in what Ianto had said, and he knew it. “Well, that’s going to change. I promise. Starting now.” Jack nodded towards the desk. “I want you to bend over the desk. Lay flat against it and spread your arms out. I’m going to start with my hand. Otherwise it will be too painful for you. I’ll warn you before I start with the cane.” Ianto’s eyes were fixed on the ground; Jack put a hand under his chin and lifted it so that Ianto was looking at him. “Do you understand me?”

"Yes. Sir.”

Jack nodded towards the desk. “OK. Bend over. “

Ianto said Jack’s name softly in that way of his, a way that was part question and part plea. But then he bit his lip, and, with trembling fingers, unbuckled his belt, and stripped off his pants and underwear. His face was so hot with humiliation it was almost physically painful. He turned, and positioned himself silently over the desk. Owen stood at his shoulder and placed a hand beside one of his. “Hold onto my fingers when it hurts,” he said.

-Not bloody likely, - Ianto thought. He wondered briefly how foolish he must look, but it didn’t seem to matter. He ached with shame. There was no way to fix the damage he’d done. No way to go back. He deserved what he was about to get and he knew it. In fact, part of him felt like he could never be punished enough. But as he waited, splayed over the desk, he realized he was still trembling. He felt Jack put one of his large, strong hands on the vase of his spine, holding him firmly against the desk.- (Those strong hands. Once he had a hold on you, you could never get away, even if you tried. But I never tried. He was so powerful, and I loved it. We had something intoxicating, and I built it all out of lies.) - Then Jack brought the other large, strong hand sharply against Ianto’s tender skin.  
Ianto yelped softly from the surprise of the impact, but only once. After that he was silent. Jack spanked him soundly but carefully, striking precisely each time so that Ianto’s skin was warmed evenly. Jack had always found Ianto’s skin to be so beautiful, so soft, and it colored easily. In another situation, the shade of crimson developing on Ianto’s buttocks would have been lovely. It would have made Jack hard; like this, it just made him sad.

When Ianto’s cheeks were a perfect scarlet and warm to the touch, Jack stopped. He rubbed them gently, - (the butt he had playfully grabbed on Ianto’s first day at work) - and gave Ianto a moment to breathe. Owen stood by, watchful. After a few moments, he caught Jack’s eye and nodded at him to proceed.

“This is the cane now. It’s important that you stay still, no matter how much it hurts. And you need to be prepared, because it will hurt.”

Ianto was not prepared. He heard the cane as it sluiced through the air, but when the stroke landed he cried out. He had never felt such a sharp searing pain. His fingers scrabbled on the wooden desk, searching for something to help him maintain his stability. When they came into contact with Owen’s fingers, Ianto grabbed onto them and held tightly. He nearly rocked forward on his feet, but Owen put his other arm around Ianto’s shoulders to hold him steady. “Come on, stay still,” he said. There may have been gentleness in his voice, but Ianto was too distracted by the pain to be sure.

Jack never gave a number at the outset. “Tosh usually can’t hold up for more than four,” he’d told Owen once, “and sometimes you don’t even flinch until at least twelve.” Owen understood, but he thought that not knowing when it would end made it harder. Jack was good with the cane, though. The strokes were steady and unvarying, all with the same even amount of impact. Welts rose and bruises formed, but there was never blood. And Jack always knew how far someone could go. He knew exactly how much pain to use to teach a lesson, to drive home the full weight of mistakes until you were certain not to repeat them. He forced you to your most vulnerable point with that cane – but he never took you past it, even by a hair. Sometimes Owen wondered where he’d acquired the skill, or if it was just a natural talent that he always knew how much someone could endure.

Ianto whimpered like a puppy as the strokes landed, one after another, on his flesh. “I’m sorry,” he began to moan. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears were starting to spill down his face. - (“You have the ugliest crying face I’ve ever seen,” Lisa had gently teased him once. “Remind me never to make you cry.” Lisa. So happy, so full of life. So long ago, before the battle burnt it all down and Ianto had been left alone among the ashes.) - One of Owen’s hands was still entwined in Ianto’s, his hand going pale from the tight grip. He still had his other arm around Ianto’s shoulders, rubbing the hand alternately across his back and through his hair. “Stay still now. It hurts. I know. But you’re doing well. You’re doing well.”

Jack’s expression was steely and cold. He had always known how to use his face to guard his emotions rather than betray them. - I don’t want to do this, - he thought desperately as he brought the cane down onto Ianto’s bottom, each time eliciting a sharper cry of pain. -You’re so funny, so clever, so sweet. It felt like a game, sex with you. I should have seen that something else was going on. I should have seen that something else was going on with Suzie, too. And now…I don’t want to punish you. It’s the only way I know to keep you safe. -  
Jack was putting more time between each stroke now to give Ianto a chance to recover a bit. Underneath his left hand, still on the small of Ianto’s back, he felt Ianto’s muscles begin to go limp. Owen, with his hand on Ianto’s shoulders, noticed it as well. Ianto’s tears had turned into gasping, shuddering sobs. Owen looked over at Jack, to let him know that he should stop soon, but he saw Jack had already realized that.

“Ianto, I’m going to give you five more,” Jack said gently, “and then we’ll be done. I want you to count them. Tell me when you’re ready to start.”

“I’m ready,” Ianto said through his sobs, so pitfully it wrenched at Jack. “I’m ready, just get it over, just get it over.”

Jack shook his head. “No, you’re not.” He looked at Owen, who unthreaded his fingers from Ianto’s to rub his back with both hands. He listened to Ianto’s breathing. When it had grown slightly less ragged, and his sobs had grown quieter, he put his hand back in Ianto’s and nodded at Jack. “Don’t forget to count,” he whispered to Ianto.

Jack brought the cane down. Ianto’s tears began to flow furiously once again, and his hands clenched Owen’s so tightly Owen thought for an instant that one of his fingers might break. “One,” Ianto choked out.

For each of the last five strokes, Jack waited to bring the cane down until Owen cued him that Ianto could handle the next one. “Two. Three.” Owen soothed him between strokes. “I need you to breathe, OK? It’s bloody awful, I know, it hurts like hell. Just stay with us, yeah? You’re almost done. Just breathe now.”

At last – at last-, Jack thought, and knew that Ianto was thinking the same thing – Jack brought the cane down for the last time. “Five.”  
“All right. All right. We’re done, Ianto,” Jack said. “We’re done.” He left the room to go back upstairs. He wanted to put the cane back in his office. Now that it was over, he didn’t want to look at the damn thing, and he knew Ianto wouldn’t want to either. Besides, he was shaky from the unpleasant experience. He needed to get away for a minute, drink some water, take some deep breaths. He could’t comfort Ianto if he was upset himself.

Downstairs, Owen helped the crying Ianto get to his feet. He was limp, his eyes fuzzy with tears and his knees weak. Keeping his arm around Ianto’s shoulders, Owen guided Ianto over to the bed. “All right, mate. Here we go.” Ianto, as compliant as a small child, let Owen ease him onto the bed.

There was a glass of water on the table by the bed. “I need you to sit up for just a second,” Owen said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a bag with two white pills in it, “and take these.”

He couldn’t sit, it was too painful. He leaned his upper body against the headboard, placing the pressure on his left hip. He didn’t ask what the pills were. He didn’t care. He was shaking as he reached out to take them, so when Owen handed him the glass of water, he kept his own hands on it, supporting Ianto’s grip. The last thing they needed was a broken glass.

“Okay,” he said, taking the glass back when Ianto had swallowed the pills, “You can lay back down now. Lay flat on your stomach.”

“I’ve got it, Owen,” said a voice from the door. “You can go.”

Owen looked over to see Jack standing at the door. His body language communicated, in that authoritarian way of his, that he was grateful for Owen’s assistance in a way he would never be able to express, and that now Owen needed to get out. With a shrug, Owen did so. Nobody told him not to mention this again: Ianto was in too much pain to think of it, and Jack knew that he didn’t have to.

Jack sat down on the other side of the bed, folding his long legs up beside him. Ianto’s face was buried in the pillow, but Jack could hear his soft crying. Of course. Owen had given him a sedative and a painkiller to help him through the night, but Ianto’s pain would linger for days. Jack was as good at causing pain as he was at giving pleasure. How he wished that he could have given Ianto the first this evening instead of the second.

“I’m sorry,” Ianto said, because that was the only thing his hazy mind seemed to be able to express. He feebly lifted himself off the bed and turned to look at Jack. His sweet brown eyes were read and puffy, sticky tears drying on his face even as fresh ones fell. “I’m so sorry-“

“Ssh. Lay back.”

Ianto fell silent and did as instructed. Jack began to rub his back with both hands in a smooth, circular motion. “I know,” he said. “I know. And it’s over now. I forgive you. It’s time to move forward.”

After a few minutes he stopped. He had brought arnica cream with him when he’d come back in the room; the jar had been sitting beside him on the bed. “This will be cold on your skin, but it should help.”

Gently, carefully, he began to spread it over the angry red welts. Ianto moaned slightly at his first touch, but then was silent. Jack continued to spread the cream into the damaged skin, and Ianto’s breathing began to grow deeper. The arnica, or the pills, or both, were working. By the time Jack was screwing the lid back onto the jar, he had fallen asleep.

Jack set the jar ono the floor. He took off his clothes and shoes, then lay back down on the bed. He put an arm around the sleeping Ianto. After a moment, he began to lightly caress the side of Ianto’s face with his thumb.- He’s so young, - Jack thought. - So young and so brave. And so full of love, no matter what it costs him. He felt a wrenching feeling when he looked at Ianto, love and tenderness mixed with a terrible fear. I won’t lose this one, he thought. I’ve lost so many of them. I’m going to protect this one, whatever it takes, I’m not going to lose him.-


End file.
